The horror western is a genre mix that we seldom get, even though it’s a match made in heaven. Gritty cowboys with few light sources, creaky cheap wooden buildings, gun happy nut jobs, dysentery—it all adds up. Hollywood does not agree with me, so when they try to mix these genres, we get shit like Mad at the Moon.
It stars Mary Stuart Masterson as a young lady who marries a man who turns into a werewolf when the moon is full. I hate the double meaning in the title, but what I hate more is that the talented Masterson ended up starring in a melodrama that makes Sidney Sheldon’s stuff look like high art. A production so amateurish that it makes my starring role in my 4th grade school play look like Broadway. Most episodes of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman were more cinematic than this.
The film was written and directed by Martin Donovan, who wrote a bunch of episodes of 70s TV shows I’ve never heard about and directed a couple of soft-core porn films, which explains the out-of-the-blue sex scenes in Mad at the Moon. He also co-wrote Death Becomes Her (1992), which is probably his only mainstream work.
The first 40 minutes or so are about how Masterson’s character doesn’t love the werewolf dude, but his outlaw hunky half-brother. Those 40 minutes are some of the most boring minutes you will experience, and the remaining hour isn’t much better.
If you think you are going to see some sweet werewolf action in this film, then spoiler, the dude never transforms into a werewolf. He just has a stupid fake beard throughout the film and is sometimes, apparently, mad at the moon. I’m pretty sure he ain’t a werewolf.
